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Take Action!

This section of the website is your guide to participating in the public planning processes that affect your neighborhood.

Jane Jacobs believed in the power of neighborhoods and in the power of neighbors to build them, and in the strength and permanence of neighborhoods that are diverse, mixed, and well-loved and well maintained by the people who live in them.


Photo by Giles Ashford

Step 1:
If you are just beginning to get involved in working to improve your neighborhood, your first step should be to download “The City is You” — an introduction to how you can follow in the footsteps of Jane Jacobs and become an advocate for your neighborhood.
(Download requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have it, you can download it free at www.adobe.com)

Step 2:
The next step to becoming active in your neighborhood is to learn about current community planning processes and how to get involved in them. The Municipal Art Society administers and provides guidance to the Campaign for Community-Based Planning—a coalition effort that has been actively working to expand the opportunities for meaningful community involvement in the planning process for years. In doing so, MAS created MyCITI, a website dedicated to providing community-based organizations with maps, data and technical assistance to support local planning efforts. Click here to learn more about the Campaign for Community-Based Planning, and here to visit www.myciti.org.

MAS also provides training and resource materials to community planners through the Livable Neighborhoods Program — click here to find out more and to sign up for the next round of workshops.

Step 3:
To learn more about how the city government proposes to address many of the issues affecting New York City and your neighborhood in the next 23 years, we recommend that you visit the city’s PlaNYC2030 website.

Below are a series of links to more tools and resources to assist you in your community planning activities. They are grouped by stages in the planning process and are designed to assist you along the way. If you know of other such tools and resources online, please e-mail us at .


Photo by Giles Ashford

Building and property information:
www.myciti.org
www.oasis.net
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/bis/bis.shtml
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/home/home.shtml

Community building:
“Creating the Community You Want,” (1998). Available at:
http://www.dos.state.ny.us/lgss/pdfs. Viewed 17 July, 2006.

New York City’s Public Review Process:
www.nyc.gov/html/dcp
www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/env_rev/
http://www.cbrooklynneighborhoods.homestead.com/Archive_material.html

Affordable Housing:
www.nyc.gov/html/hpd
http://www.nyhomes.org/home/index.asp
www.hud.gov
www.lisc.org
www.housingfirst.org

Economic development:
www.nyc.gov/sbs
www.nymainstreet.org
www.smartgrowth.org

Sustainability:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/greenyc/greenyc.shtml
www.greenhomenyc.org/

Sustainable Measures
Offers a comprehensive guide to measuring sustainability at the community level. It includes free training materials, tips on organizing indicators, provides relevant examples of good indicators, and a searchable database of indicators for specific topics listed by category. A vast resource list, including print and web publications.
http://www.sustainablemeasures.com/index.html

Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)
Organization that provides technical assistance and information on environmentally sound economic development strategies. http://www.ilsr.org/

Neighborhood Sustainability Indicators Guidebook. Urban Ecology Coalition, Minneapolis, MN (1999)
A task force details its experience in developing neighborhood sustainability indicators for two neighborhoods in Minneapolis. It explains the process from developing goals through writing the indicators, and provides detailed explanation of the methodologies it used in development.
http://www.crcworks.org/guide.pdf

Redefining Progress Sustainability Indicators Program
The Sustainability Indicators Program provides communities, public officials, and business leaders with analytical tools and educational programs that protect the environment and promote a more equitable and just society. The website includes ecological footprint calculators, and various guides on reducing footprint for individuals, corporations, and communities.
http://www.rprogress.org/newprograms/sustIndi/index.shtml

The Community Indicators Handbook, 2nd Edition
Available from Redefining Progress website:
http://www.rprogress.org/cihb/index.shtml

National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership
NNIP is a collaborative effort by the Urban Institute and local partners to further the development and use of neighborhood-level information systems in local policymaking and community building.
http://www.urban.org/nnip/

Community Tool Box
Excellent resource for each stage of community organization. Free resources and networking for people working to develop healthier, more sustainable communities. Tips and tools for creating neighborhood coalitions, help in developing strategic plans, advice on increasing membership, help evaluating and sustaining the initiatives once they are developed.
http://ctb.ku.edu/

Creating Sustainable Community Programs: Examples of Collaborative Public Administration
Mark R. Daniels (ed.)
In-depth case studies of successful sustainable community programs. Many of the programs exist through government funding or regulation, one—“Food Gatherers”—is a purely voluntary, non-profit program without any government funding.

International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)
Website includes an information clearinghouse, summaries of local government projects addressing environmental and development issues, and “Tools for a Sustainable Community,” and web conferences. There is also a page for calculating your ecological footprint.
http://www.iclei.org/

International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
IISD is a non-profit organization established and supported by the Governments of Canada and Manitoba. A great starting place for web-based information on sustainable development, IISD has a number of documents on world wide sustainable development/community projects available for a fee in hard copy format. Includes the Bellagio Principles for sustainable community indicator development.
http://www.iisd.org/default.asp

New York City Local Law 86
Describes green building standards for New York City projects.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/pdf/ll_86of2005.pdf

Sustainable Communities Network
Tools for community action, a guide to planning a sustainable event, fact sheets on ways to reduce global warming, smart growth, growing a sustainable economy and many others.
http://www.sustainable.org/

Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods Initiative (SUNI)
One of the programs developed by Sustainable Seattle to connect with neighborhoods, collect data, and present information about neighborhood health and sustainability.
http://www.sustainableseattle.org/Programs/SUNI/

Transportation Alternatives
Includes Maps, travel tips, crashstat crash maps, legal advice, and calendar of upcoming walks and rides in the NYC area
http://www.transalt.org/info/index.html

United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development
Created to provide follow up on the 1992 The Earth Summit in Rio. In addition to a list of sustainability indicators, the web site has links to many UN sites related to sustainability.
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/

Worldwatch Institute
Nonprofit public policy research organization working on sustainability issues. Publishes World Watch magazine, the annual Vital Signs and State of the World reports, as well as the World Watch Series on particular issues. Excellent source of detailed information about sustainability issues.
http://www.worldwatch.org/

Historic Preservation

Public Agencies
City of New York Landmarks Preservation Commission
www.nyc.gov/landmarks
New York State Historic Preservation Office
http://nysparks.state.ny.us/shpo/

Organizations
National Trust for Historic Preservation
www.nationaltrust.org
Preservation League of New York State
www.preservenys.org
New York Landmarks Conservancy
http://www.nylandmarks.org/
Historic Districts Council
www.hdc.org
The Neighborhood Preservation Center
http://www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org/index.html

Additional Resources: Tools for collecting data

Assessing the current and future sustainability of the community requires having a technical awareness of the issues, and may require gathering data to determine needs.

New York State Ambient Air Quality Standards
New York State Ambient Air Quality Standards are provided online at the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation’s website:
http://www.dec.state.ny.us/website/dar/baqs/aqreport/aaqstd.html
Region 2 (New York City) air quality data is also provided, broken down by nine pollutants monitored throughout the city. New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is responsible for monitoring and implementing air quality standards throughout the city and has data describing which areas are in non-attainment for air quality standards.

Water Quality standards
New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) published a Harbor Water Quality report in 2003. This report, available online, describes the main pollution sources in New York waterways and provides maps and other graphics detailing where pollution sources are.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/hwqs/hqws2003.html

Ecological Footprint Analysis
Understanding the limits on environmental carrying capacity and human impacts on the environment is also necessary. Ecological Footprint Analysis is an excellent way to become educated about how consumption relates to environmental carrying capacity. Ecological Footprint analysis shows the actual land area — the footprint — necessary to support our consumption patterns. It is a very effective way of seeing the hidden costs to society, the environment, and related parts of the economy of our choices and lifestyle. Ecological Footprint is a tool being used by many communities to measure the impacts of consumption patterns and help develop strategies to solve the larger issues facing their communities. Ecological Footprint calculators are available online for individuals or communities (see http://www.myfootprint.org/).

Current development:
www.plannyc.org/projects
http://www.pieaia.org/pie/projects/browse.html
http://www.citylaw.org/
www.nyc.gov/html/dcp

For more details about previous and current community plans in New York City, visit the Multimedia section of this website.

Contemporary Activists

Across the city various community groups, organizations and nonprofits work tirelessly on behalf of the communities. Having identified issues affecting them, they have, in many cases, moved mountains and overcome huge impediments, in solving them for the benefit of community residents. This section offers brief overviews of the work and successes of three organizations currently working in New York City to improve their neighborhoods, implementing Jane Jacobs's principles in their own way.

Sustaining mixed uses and diversity requires affordable housing — today, an all-the-more paramount issue in the city. Activist groups often work with architects, lawyers, planners, and other professionals to promote projects that improve neighborhoods, rather than merely preserve them. Nos Quedamos, for example, organized locals not just to fight the proposed urban-renewal plan but to draft an alternative. Its plan featured density, a mix of uses, and paths toward sustainable growth. Nos Quedamos also formed a community-development corporation to actually build what it envisioned. Similarly, NAG came to the table with the local Community Board, affordable housing advocates, parks advocates, historic preservationists, elected officials, civic groups, and diverse local constituencies to hammer out consensus-based neighborhood plans that sought to guide future development. In 1996, UPROSE began to focus on training the next generation of organizers through community education, intergenerational indigenous leadership, advocacy, and community-based planning.

Nos Quedamos (We Stay) is nonprofit community development corporation comprised of residents and members of the local business community from the South Bronx, committed to preserving their voice and vision for their community and its future. Click here to watch a short video in which executive director Yolanda Gonzalez talks about her work and goals for Nos Quedamos.

Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (formerly Neighbors Against Garbage) is a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, based community organization that was born out of the neighborhood's desire to recapture its waterfront, reduce local environmental hazards, and advocate for public policies promoting healthy mixed-use communities. Click here to watch a short video of Peter Gillespie, NAG executive director, describes how the organization formed and how they have been successful in their advocacy.

UPROSE (United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park) was founded in 1966 by Puerto Rican activists as the emerging Puerto Rican community faced social service and social justice challenges. Today, their community activism and organization advocates primarily for environmental, social and economic justice for the Sunset Park community. Click here to watch a short video in which UPROSE executive director Elizabeth Yeampierre and director of youth leadership and ongoing development Frank Torres discuss their organization and how their community activism follows Jane Jacobs's principles.

[Note: If you are having trouble viewing the videos then you may not have Adobe Flash Player. Click here to download it for free.]

For an overview of the exhibit Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York click here and to learn more about Jane Jacobs, her writings and her work, click here.